The present invention relates to an improved telephone handset receiver, and more particularly to an earring compatible telephone handset receiver which is equally comfortable for all users either with or without earrings.
A conventional telephone handset receiver has a set of circular holes or narrow slots located in the central region of the receiver's front surface. This set of holes or slots is used to transmit sound and is termed a sound outlet. When the receiver is used, its front surface is pushed against the user's ear, and the sound outlet is aligned with the user's ear canal. Thus, the ambient noise is blocked out and the sound generated by the receiver can be heard clearly.
However, discomfort may occur when a conventional telephone handset receiver is used by a user who wears earrings. The earring itself, as well as its mounting hardware, such as a pin, a hook or a clip, may hurt the user's skin when the telephone receiver is pushed against the earring or the ear lobe. This situation becomes even worse if the size of the earring is large, the tip of the pin is sharp or the user has to hold the handset by a shoulder in order to free both hands. To avoid this discomfort, some users will take off their earring before picking up a telephone. Obviously, it is quite inconvenient, especially when doing it many times a day. Nevertheless, some users prefer to wear earrings when they are using a telephone. To avoid the discomfort, they will keep the receiver away from the ear, or move the receiver up so that the lower portion of the receiver will not touch the earring or the ear lobe. In either case, the sound generated from the receiver will become weak, and the ambient noise will become noticeable.
Many attempts have been made to overcome this problem. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 320,799 to Holt (1991), U.S. Pat. No. Des. 306,169 to Burton (1990), U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,506 to Kochan (1989) and U.S. Pat. No. 2,501,830 to Ruml, Jr. (1948), disclose several ways to remove a portion of the receiver's housing to prevent the receiver's body from touching the earrings. However, the portion of the receiver's housing removed is either too small to accommodate a large earring, or too large to prevent the intrusion of the ambient noise. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 327,069 to Tomaszewski (1992) shows a receiver cap with a lower left corner removed. Because of this unsymmetrical design, this receiver cannot be used on the right side ear. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 320,798 to Holt (1991) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,231,688 to Ugartechea (1966) propose to use adopters with a small front surface. Because there is only a small area contacting the ear, discomfort will occur when the receiver is held by a shoulder and pushed tightly against the ear. Furthermore, since these structures have to be completely removed before a telephone receiver can be used in its normal way, the forgoing permanently modified receiver structures are not suitable for a telephone shared within multiple users. U.S. Pat. No. 5,034,979 to Erickson (1991) proposes a hinged earpiece adapter structure. The drawback of this approach is that a large adapter must be physically moved away in order to restore the normal operation mode, and it is inconvenient to use a telephone with a big adapter hanging aside. In addition, its complicated structure cannot withstand certain rough usages encountered by a public telephone or a telephone used in a working environment.